The Bard's Books

Summary:  In Fairfold, regular people live side by side with magical Folk. Tourists come to visit Fairfold and its main attraction, a strange faerie prince lies sleeping in a glass casket. Hazel and her brother pretend they are his knights, but Hazel knows he will never wake up. Then one day, he does. Hazel discovers that in her past she made a bargain with the Fae so that Ben could go music school, but has kept this a secret. Hazel and Ben both have to remember and use their pasts to save the present. Strengths: The Darkest Part of the Forest is an urban fantasy. Black merges the real world with that of the Folk seamlessly. She also incorporates a gay romance subplot that doesn't feel forced or unnecessary. The book is dark and has some creepy elements. Characterization is handled well with Hazel, Ben and Jack being multi faceted and complex. The plot progresses through fractured pieces of present and past chapters, mostly told by Hazel, though a few are told from Ben...

For this course, I was required to interact and evaluate a plethora of technology tools for use in the library. Some technology was geared toward student use, other pieces were used for faculty or staff use or for connecting with parents or other library patrons. I think this may have been one of the most useful courses I've had thus far in my LibSci grad program. On top of absolutely loving the way assignments have been handled through blog posts, the hands on experience and ability to look at how other students are using the same tools was so incredibly useful. The list of blogs for other students also gives me a future resource when I am looking for ways to use these tools. My favorite tools were definitely the web 2.0 tools that I can use with students to create. Whether using them for lesson plans, makerspaces or with clubs, these creative ways to use technology to further understanding will likely be a core piece of instruction as a librarian. I imagine I will be using ...

I can't help but compare TLA to TMEA. They are similar types of conferences. Both seem well run, with a variety of speakers but TLA has the ritz factor. The small touches that probably help explain the extreme differences in price go to TLA. There are Ozarka water dispensers every few feet in the halls (maybe that's just this convention center?), amazing free snacks/dinner thingies. I know I'm a bit everywhere - maybe sleep deprivation? But here's another observation. Diversity is a huge issue with librarians. Since I'm doing my degree online, I had no idea how...same...the majority of librarians seem. Not that we aren't all different people with different experiences, but I walked into a session with ~500 people and only 3 were men, and maybe a dozen were people of color. I hope this is changing institutionally. I need to do some research about this stuff. I have more thoughts on TLA, it was a really positive experience for me and I can't wait to see what...

In the 1980s and 1990s, as educational technology was first becoming a budding field, Richard Clark published an analysis of data where he determined that the media that delivers instruction is no more than a delivery tool. He used an analogy of a truck carrying the information to the learner. He concluded that the media chosen has no effect on the learning taking place - that the instruction in the only thing that influences the learning.  In 1994, Kozma responded and prompted the current debate. Kozma states that some media have specific characteristics that do effect learning as more than a vehicle. While there is little research to support Kozma's claim, he suggests that the way the media helps shape the learning does have impact and that evaluating this impact requires more than raw data as the media and the way we use it has become more complex and nuanced. Clark has stood by his original conclusions and has even subsequently released articles further supporting his stanc...

I'm pretty lucky when it comes to podcasting. My husband, the Chainmail Ninja, is a hobbyist podcaster and professional book narrator so we have quite a recording setup in our home office. He worked in radio for 10+ years so he does the production side of things as well as the recording. I've tossed around the idea of contributing on his podcasts, which are mostly about geek culture and hobbies, but haven't had time to put this plan in action. But for today's blog post, I went ahead and made some time to create a podcast using our equipment. There are three main steps to creating a podcast. First, is the planning stage. Some podcasters prepare using various methods. Some research their topics, but don't do any other prep and speak mostly off the cuff. Many podcasters create a notes page to make sure they hit all the points they want to. Others create detailed scripts for their podcasts. The second step is recording the podcast. This can be done using the inter...

Let's look at cartoons and how they can be used in the library with students. I tried three different cartoon generating tools. First, I created a little comic about reserving library books using ToonDoo. ToonDo was fairly easy to use, but inserting text and changing the size was a little tricky. Saving was really easy. There was quite a bit of variety, but the quality of the pictures and backgrounds wasn't fantastic. My second comic was created using Pixton. What I liked about Pixton was that the graphic choices were really vibrant. The backgrounds were more fun than at ToonDoo. I made a cute little easy comic of a library joke. It was easy to save, but difficult to place the characters where I wanted. Lastly, I used MakeBeliefsComix to make a 3rd comic strip. I think MakeBeliefsComix was my favorite generator. I found the creation process to be the most intuitive using this tool. I would use comics with my classes in several way. Many of the generators had w...

Many libraries are already doing great things with youtube for their students. I browsed several school library youtube channels and found some gems.  First, here are two videos from BBMSmedia's channel, which can be found here. The video I found most useful for students would be the tutorial on how to use Noodle to create a book citation.    A video I found that I think students would love from this channel is this one that is a parody of Let It Go from Frozen about returning library books.  Norman High School Library has a great library of youtube videos, including this really helpful tutorial for their students on how to access the library webpage and use the resources contained there.  And this hilarious Harry Potter Dark Lord Funk video is definitely going to be a hit with students! The Unquiet Library includes this really useful video of how to embed a Prezi presentation into a wikispaces page.  And the...